The East Central 2-A Conference’s big dog – or in this case big cat – showed it still has its claws at the league’s super duals.

Croatan, which earlier this year saw its streak of never having lost a conference match ended by Dixon, swept all five matches Saturday at the super duals, pulling the Cougars into a first-place tie with Bulldogs heading into the final week of the regular season.

“They really wanted to get this one,” Croatan coach David Perry said Monday. “We lost our streak being unbeaten in the East Central. They didn’t want to lose the other streak. This would be our 15th straight conference championship. So I think they were pretty determined to win this one.”

While Croatan won four of its matches by 28 points or more, the Cougars were taken to the final match in edging Dixon 30-28 to forge the first-place tie. Both coaches said a key was that Croatan won the coin flip, which meant the Stallions had to announce who was wrestling at each weight class first and allowed Perry to make some strategic changes.

“Last time they won the coin flip,” Perry said. “That enabled us to get two wins in the upper weights.”

Dixon coach Daniel O’Dell agreed.

“We had to show first,” he said. “So some things didn’t go our way. But Croatan is a good team.”

Croatan and Dixon are tied at 8-1 in the ECC with one regular-season dual match left. The Bulldogs travel to East Duplin on Thursday while Croatan plays host to Southwest on Friday. East Duplin is 0-9 in the league while Southwest is 6-3 after going 3-2 in the super duals.

Perry agreed for Dixon to lose to the Panthers “would be a shocker, a huge upset,” while the Stallions are a talented and dangerous team that the Cougars “can’t overlook.”

“They have a good program,” Perry said.

Croatan beat Southwest at the super duals 51-20 after slipping past the Stallions 42-34 on Jan. 4 at Southwest.

If Croatan and Southwest end up tied for the regular-season title, they would be crowned co-champions, with the winner of the league tournament Saturday at Northside earning the ECC’s No. 1 seed in the NCHSAA 2-A dual team championships.

The ECC is guaranteed two spots in the playoffs, although Perry said the third-place team – Southwest – should earn a wild-card berth.

“I would think Southwest would surely get one. They’re deserving of it,” he said. “I would say three of probably the top five programs in the east are in our conference in 2-A. I would say Southwest is in there … (with) North Pitt and First Flight. I would say Southwest could wrestle with either one of them.”

Page 2 of 3 - Long a statewide power in wrestling, Croatan has experienced some growing pains this year while Dixon, which was unbeaten before losing to the Cougars on Saturday, has one of its best teams in years.

Dixon is now 18-1 overall.

The Bulldogs beat Croatan 40-26 on Jan. 7, which opened the door for Dixon to claim the league title in its first year in the ECC after moving up from Coastal Plains 1-A Conference following statewide realignment.

With Croatan’s win Saturday, the Bulldogs now may have to settle for a share of the title.

“We were young at the beginning of the season,” Perry said. “We’ve been kind of growing as the season went along, getting a little better every week. The last few weeks some of the younger guys have really started to come along.

“We wrestled better against Southwest. Last time that was a close match. This time we wrestled better against them. Then the Dixon match, they beat us by 14 earlier in the season. This was a much better showing.”

Six wrestlers went 5-0 for the Cougars. They were Grant Hall (113), Dustin McCaw (120), Austin Meaney (122), Brody McGrath (152), Andrew Scott (160) and Andrew Colborn (195), who is ranked No. 1 in the state at his weight class in 2-A by retrorankings.com.

Dixon had four wrestlers win all five of their matches. They were Dylan Patry (106), Kevin Cagle (145/152), Seth Schoonover (170/182) and Jacob Rochelle (heavyweight).

Southwest had two wrestlers go 5-0. They were defending state champion Joby Armenta (138) and Zach Winegardner (160/170).

While not happy to see his Bulldogs suffer their first loss, O’Dell said he was “happy it was now and not in the state playoffs.”

“In retrospect, it woke up my kids and they seemed to really motivated today at practice,” he said. “But it was a tough weekend taking that loss.”